With the advent of the modem and other network interface devices, the personal computer has evolved from a personal productivity device to a communications gateway. As personal computers have become increasingly used for network and telephone based communication, many different communication programs, such as electronic mail (e-mail), Internet communication, fax, and even basic voice telephone communications have developed as popular applications for personal computers.
Presently, different communication applications for most personal and workstation computers are available as separate programs from different vendors, each with their own user interfaces, and command and data formats. Therefore, in order to use different communication applications, the user is forced to learn and access several different programs. For example, a user may use one program for e-mail, a separate program for fax, and a third program for web access. These programs require the user to initialize and bring up each of the programs to access the particular communication function. This requires the opening of separate application programs or windows, and the familiarization with different program interfaces and command conventions. The use of separate communication programs also requires the use of cumbersome translator programs if content from one communication medium is transferred via a different medium (e.g., fax to e-mail).
It is thus desirable to provide a system which integrates various communication applications available on a computer system.
It is further desirable to provide a graphical user interface which provides an intuitive and simple to use interface through which a user can access several separate and distinct communication programs.